June 23, 2006

Time!

It's been 48 hours since my call for submissions to the left slanting challenge. Thank you all, for contributing your ideas and expertise. I've been swatching quite of few of them -- you know me, I cannot resist a good swatch -- and will report on my opinions in the marrow.

But first, I want to submit my own contribution. It's call "nona's crossed stitch left slanting decrease". A bit tedious to work, but heck I had to come up with something. I've pair it with the beautiful k2tog so you can compare -- take a peek...

nona's crossed stitch left slanting decrease compared with k2tog

and a closer look

It's a variation on k2tog, but before knitting the 2 stitches together I swapped their positions, keeping the first stitch in front -- so it crosses to the left. Here's how:

Slip 1st stitch purlwise onto a cable needle and hold in front

Slip next stitch purlwise to the right needle

Slip the stitch on the cable needle back to the left needle

Slip the stitch on the right needle back to the left needle

k2tog

As I said, a bit awkward, but I'm quite happy with the results. Give it a try and see what you think!

Comments

Maybe we could also use the cable-needle-less technique to do the same thing? It wouldn't redue the number of steps, perhaps, but it would certainly eliminate the fiddly cable needle. I'm sure greater minds than mine have already thought of this.

Gee, that's an impressive left-slanting decrease! I'm one of the overly-picky ones who've also been fretting over the way my SSK's just don't look as nice as the K2Tog's. Logically, there should be a way to make them both identical and thus equally as attractive. Now I'll have to look up how to do the cable twist w/o a needle.

Posted by: MarilynA | Jun 24, 2006 3:52:59 AM

doing a cable twist w/o a cable needle.. in this case:

Slip 2 stitches to the RH needle. With the LH needle in front of the RH needle, go past the first slipped stitch on the RH needle and insert it in the second slipped stitch. Slide the RH needle out of both stitches, insert it into the hanging stitch, and then transfer it to the LH needle.

It certainly looks better than my pathetic ssks. I'm off to give it a try, but I'm still looking forward to the final assessment post.

Posted by: Samina | Jun 24, 2006 12:18:32 PM

I'm picturing this in my head... (no needles & yarn at the moment)... but doesn't this give you the same "stitch result" as ssk? Maybe it looks better because the extra steps keep the gauge more even?

Posted by: Bea | Jun 24, 2006 12:33:22 PM

I guess I am late. Just finished taking the pictures of my swatch. Please see here:
It is exactly the same as you are doing, change the direction of the stitches and k2tog. Mine look different because my stitches lay different on the needle.
See photos here: http://tinyurl.com/h8c93
of go to my blog and you will find a link.

Just beautiful! What a wonderful piece of work with equally excellent instructions. I knit the German way --- with the yarn in my left hand --- so i always have to turn things around but your instructions are perfectly clear.

when are you leaving for france and the barge? anna called my mom and she was acting like anna was leaving very soon

Posted by: callista | Jun 26, 2006 6:32:22 PM

Ashley from doggedknits.com pointed me here, as I'm equally obsessed with perfecting left-leaning decreases. I did a little test with the standards in early May (post titled "left-leaning radical"), and ultimately settled on ssk (or the one where, on the previous row you work those two stitches backward, which is the same as ssk but you manipulate the stitches less). But I'm definitely looking for a better method! Can't wait to see all the swatches worked up.

Okay, I've only used it on a sock where you can't really tell, but I have a strong feeling that this is going to look great! Thank you for figuring this out because I too have had left slanting issues (ie they bug the crap out of me!)